Call Me Home (34 page)

Jackson laughed and rolled down the window and gulped
the fall air. Heat was still spreading through him. His eyes kept tearing up and he laughed again. He was suddenly unbearably thirsty and he reached for the half-empty jug of water in the backseat and drank it all the way down. He didn't know what to feel; happiness, he thought was too simple. There were regrets in him that would always be there, and small wonderful things, too. A small thing, to not be thirsty. He opened the glove compartment and took out the map. He unfolded it on his lap. Randy kept fiddling with the radio. Jackson kicked at his backpack at his feet. It was empty, except for the photograph, Eric's tie, the knife. He had nothing of Don's. Even the notes he'd drowned in the river. To think of how badly he'd hoped for their life together to be delivered and made real, while Don had been burning in shame.

But none of that mattered. There was the world before the phone rang, and the world after, and they were stepping into the new place, like driving into a dream. So this is what happens, he thought. We survived. His sister, shining, little star. She was a point in the sky, on the earth, that he could follow now.

They'd crossed back into Missouri and the sun was burning up the highway in orange sunset, and Randy kept twisting the dial and the station finally caught. He couldn't think straight to hear the voices on the ghostchaser station, but they rose up around him like a comforting crowd. It felt like all of the good in his life was there, in his hands and the things they passed – the road sign shining in the orange sun from the west was pointing them south, the handsome man thumbing a ride was every handsome man he might one day love. The hills all around them were burning with sunset. Randy was beside him, and maybe he could make things right again, now that they knew exactly where to go.

Amy

Fannin, Texas, 1990

SHE SAT ON THE FLOOR WITH THE TORN WRAPPING AND
the gifts around her – a duffel bag, a wool coat, a Walkman – and thought, This could be my last Christmas with my father. The lump in her throat was a ball bearing, solid and metallic.

“I thought those things would be good for your trip,” her mother said. She touched the sleeve of the coat. “It's cold in Seattle,” she said.

Amy's father was dozing on the sofa. She watched his hands twitch in his lap.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said.

They'd set the date to leave, and these small events paved the way: a dinner with her mother at City Market; dollar beers at the American Legion; Christmas. Then they'd be gone, and she could see how it was as good as done: you waited for something and then it was past, and it might as well have already happened, it all went that quickly. She swallowed hard against the lump.

“Amy – you can always come home,” her mother said. “I know you need to go do this, have this adventure.” She picked up a piece of wrapping paper and folded it in half. “I know that. Don't ask me to be happy –” She gave a choked little laugh. “But I know that. And I need you to know: you can always come home.”

“Okay, Ma,” she said. She looked away before she started to cry. She stood and went to the sofa, sat beside her father. She leaned against him, smelling his shirt.

It was six or seven when she heard Gary's truck pull up.
They didn't have plans to see each other until the next day, but she knew the sound of the truck and she slipped on her shoes and went outside.

Gary leaned out the window. He was drumming on the door, his face red, a cigarette burning in his other hand. “Please,” he said. “I need to see you.”

“But – my parents,” she said.

“I just need to drive,” he said. “I just need you with me.” For a minute she felt angry – this was her last night with her parents, her last real night just for them, before they were half a country apart. But his face – he looked like he might cry, and it washed over her – this was the man she loved, and something was wrong.

“Give me a minute,” she said, and went back in for her sweatshirt. Her mother nodded, as though she'd expected this, and looked away.

Gary drove the truck the length of Fannin and then out onto the highway, saying nothing. He put out his cigarette and gripped her hand tightly in his. She looked at him, brushed the hair from her face, waiting.

“Where are we going?” she asked finally.

“I don't know.” He squeezed her hand. “I just had to get out of there.”

“What happened?” she asked, but he shook his head. “Can't you tell me?”

He shook his head again, but then he started to talk, letting go of her hand, reaching for his cigarettes. “I just – can't take it!” he said. “I just can't fucking wait to be gone.”

He was heading toward the ranch, she saw now. “They don't care what I want,” he said. “If I don't work on that ranch, they don't want anything to do with me.”

“What happened, Gary?” she asked. “Can you slow down for a minute and tell me what happened?”

He was pulling at his hair. “I've been working on this fucking shed all month,” he said. “All fucking month. I work and I work.
It's like they don't even treat me like their son. It's like I'm just the fucking help.”

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Did they say something? Are they upset about us? About us leaving?”

“Do you think I even told them?” he said. “Do you think I'm even going to give them the satisfaction?”

“Maybe if they met me –” They should want to meet her, she thought. They should want something.

“You don't get it,” he said, looking at her. “You're mine. I don't want them to have any of that.”

She couldn't decipher it, what was so terrible, what was making him so angry, but then she thought of his strong hands touching her, the curtain of his dark hair falling over her, containing her, the whisper of his mouth against her ear, her neck. Who could be cruel to him? Who could make him hurt this way?

“They treat me so badly,” he said. “Don't ask me to talk about them. Don't ask me to even think about them.”

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

They drove in silence to the ranch, and she imagined a scene with these parents. She imagined them with knotted faces, eyes like bullet holes, snarling mouths. But Gary turned the truck down the rutted road, far away from the house, toward a half-finished building, a frame and four walls – the building he'd been working on, she assumed. He parked in front of it and took three deep breaths. “God,” he said. “God, I just want to be gone from here.”

“I know,” she said. “We will.” She looked at him, trying to understand why they were here. He had that apartment. He didn't have to be out here if it was that bad. She was about to say so when he opened the truck door.

“There's something I have to do,” he said. He climbed out and went around the back of the truck. It was getting dark and she could see him carrying something to the building, walking slowly around the perimeter. She could hear a splashing sound, but it took her a moment to understand. The smell of gasoline – but no, she thought,
that doesn't make sense – but then she heard the scrape of the match, and a bright arrow sailed from his fingers.

She watched the fire spread, almost not breathing. Her mind felt slow. The bright flames were moving up the sides of the shed; they seemed to drip back down to the dirt, and even as she heard the sound of it, the heat radiating toward her, it was like she was watching from a distance. It was melting, she thought. Her hands felt cold, suddenly, and her body heavy, and she watched it as if she was watching a film. He came back to the truck and put his head in her lap. She held him, touched his beautiful face. He looked at her as the fire burned and the heat continued to blow toward them. She tried to make sense of it, tried to break the spell that seemed to have come over her – he was hurt; he was burning the shed because someone had hurt him; who would want to hurt him? Her mind was swimming and it welled inside her, his nameless sorrow.

They would go, she thought, far from where anyone could hurt him – could hurt them. They would leave, and they would protect each other. The moon was coming out, the fire was dying down, and it was beautiful. This night was lit up for them, she thought. The world was full of people who were terrible to each other, but it was full of beauty, too. They would find the beauty, she thought. They would spend it on each other.

Lydia

Fannin, Texas, 2010

WE WAITED. WE SAT TOGETHER ON THE FRONT PORCH
and stared at the road and I didn't have to go to school. My mother cried for three days and said over and over, “I'm just so happy.” The feeling was a song playing from far away, a line from a lullaby you hardly remember, “And I shall stay till my dying day with my whistling gypsy rover.” I don't remember the night or if we sat through it. The day and the night were all the same in the middle, between, before, and after. Dust from the road settled on my skin.

I felt the car before I heard it, and then I heard it before I saw it. My heart punched my chest. The sun was in my eyes and I couldn't see them, but I knew it was Jackson, I knew it was Randy. My heart was still pounding but there they were, getting out of the car, and we were standing, we were moving toward them. And my mother was saying “My Jack, my Jack, my Jackson,” and each time she said his name it was a late summer plum, it was like falling asleep in the sun in the afternoon. He stood in the light and looked at me. I'd thought my life was over, but now it was starting again. My mother was saying his name, and he was coming toward me, and I was his sister.

Epilogue

The Bird

STILL IT COMES TO AMY SOMETIMES, A DROWNING. THE
darkness of the little house, the fear, the pounding of blood in her ears, behind her eyes. Nineteen years, she thinks. The length of time to know, to leave, to leave again for good, to slip his grip. The first promise she made to her children was to protect them. To bring them safely into the world. It swells in her, cold and swirling. What promises she broke. What it meant to be happy, and what was sorrow, the other lives she might have led, the feeling of her children's skin, their delicate faces, the tiny bones stringing them together, hunger of mouth, hunger of heart, loneliness, desire, the firmness of the earth, and memory, and belief in love, and belief in God – God, she thinks, and it seems so far from her, the only thing remaining her own dark song to Gary, pray for yourself. Pray for the rest of your terrible life. It washes her again and again: everything she had ever been was in those close rooms, trembling. Ruin was the lit window. Her skin was the shape of his hand.

And to stop it, she thinks of her children. It is always the same dream, and it is as real as if it is happening in front of her. She imagines them back in those dark forests, side by side, and she is somewhere nearby, watching. “Here,” Jackson is saying, “is where our mother shot a bird down out of the sky and then made it fly again. Did I ever tell you that story?” Lydia shakes her head, and Jackson points to the trees. “Over there,” he says, “Right over there. Did I never tell you that?” They are standing together in the stands of green pine, the rain hardly touching them. He is
pointing for his sister and the bird is already lighting up from the wet ground, as though it has never been touched at all. And they are coming over the hills toward her, together. They are radiant, waiting to see.

Acknowledgements

I WISH THAT I COULD LIST EVERYONE WHO HAS GIVEN
me love and support in writing this book – a thousand cups of coffee and hours talking over the same skipping Lucinda Williams album. There's not enough paper and never enough time, but I'll do my best.

Thank you to the faculty at Oberlin College who set me on my path, especially Dan Chaon, Ayse Papatya Bucak, and Sylvia Watanabe. In Portland, where the way was a little hazier, Evelyn Sharenov, Ariel Gore, and Kevin Sampsell shared their wisdom and friendship. I owe a debt of gratitude to many of the faculty and visiting writers at the University of Montana MFA program, including Kevin Canty, Deirdre McNamer, Judy Blunt, Beverly Lowry, and eileen myles. Thank you to Liz Gilbert, who, when I was twenty-one and lost in Wyoming, told me that the best thing I could do was to go out in the world and listen, and who gave freely of her time and kindness. Thanks to the advocates at VOA Home Free for allowing me, for a short while many years ago, to be part of their work and mission, and to everyone who continues to work in the movement to end violence against women and children. The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska and the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center in Minnesota provided weeks of uninterrupted time and support to write this book, and Brooke Warner's technical guidance brought everything together.

I owe a special thanks to some early readers and champions, including Cat, Rachel, Shahana, Anna and Chuck Kruse,
Elysia Mann, Mary Ann Bell, Oliver Butterfield, Molly, Lindsey, Lehua and Liz, Greg, Grey, Kala, Jenn, Chris, Sarah and Ash, Hank and Fred, Katie and Dave, Aylen, Marybeth, Ty, Dee, and so many others. Thank you to Emily, who was there through it all. Finally, thank you to Rhonda Hughes and the team at Hawthorne, who have been more incredible than I could have even hoped for.

Language has always been the way I hold on to the world. I will never stop being grateful for everyone who has been alongside me searching for the right words.